Communist Party of Turkmenistan

The Communist Party of Turkmenistan was the ruling political party of the Soviet Turkmen SSR (from 1925 to 1991), and a part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1985, Saparmurrat Niyazov became the party's leader, and he renamed the party to the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, which ceased to be a communist party. Niyazov then made the Communist Party illegal, and it remained banned even after the end of his presidency.